Pretty, Reloaded
by silver ruffian
Summary: Dean Winchester expresses his feelings about the word 'pretty'. Pre-Pilot, from season 1 all the way up to season 4. Possible spoilers.


_**A/N:**_ Okay, so Phoebe challenged me to do another canon fic. The POV in this one is none other than Dean Winchester himself.

_**Timeline:**_ Pre-Pilot, from season 1 all the way up to season 4. Possible spoilers.

_**Warnings:**_ Dean cusses.

_**Summary:**_ Dean Winchester expresses his feelings about the word 'pretty'.

**_Disclaimer:_** I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, not for profit.

* * *

I can't even begin to tell you how much I _fucking_. _Hate. That. Word._

Heard it all my life. Didn't bother me the first four years, when…when Mom was here. She didn't call me 'pretty" anyway. Other folks did.

"Oh, what a pretty little boy."

"Oh he's so pretty."

What a bunch of dumbasses. Pretty's for girls. Last time I checked, I'm _not_ a damn girl.

Mom called me handsome. I was her big boy and I was going to be the best big brother in the world, and angels were watching over me. She told me that every night, when she tucked me in.

Angels, huh?

Yeah, well, those fuckers must have been asleep at the switch. We all know how _that_ turned out, huh?

As far as me being the best big brother in the world, well, Mom got that one wrong too.

My own fault.

* * *

School was okay. I had a few teachers that I really liked, a few subjects I could really get into. Sam's different from me. He loved school, the freak. He's a walking collection of damn near everything he's ever seen or read.

Me? First thing I ask myself is this something I should hunt. If the answer's no, then I ask myself, is this something I'm interested in? If the answer's yes, I find out everything I can about it.

If the answer's no, I move on.

I didn't give a rat's ass what people thought of me in school. They'd look at me and see this blond kid in faded worn clothes, a freak, a ne'er do well who never stayed the whole semester anyway. One of my teachers in grade school even told me that it was a good thing that I was "pretty" 'cause I was lacking in the brains department.

I let her think whatever she damn well wanted to think. I didn't give a fuck.

* * *

About Dad.

'm not knocking him, you know? Even after all this time, after finding out about that Adam Milligan kid, the other brother I never even knew I friggin' had, I can't knock Dad. I just can't. Dude did the best he could in a freakin' bad situation. I mean it. I really do.

When I was younger, especially right after Mom died, Dad was around more. He was still finding his way as a hunter, just starting out. He'd leave us with Pastor Jim, in Blue Earth, or at Uncle Richard's house. Dad didn't trust just anyone with us, not after what happened to Mom.

We stayed with people Dad knew, sometimes overnight. I didn't like that so much. Didn't like the way some of them looked at me and Sam. Mostly me. It was like they were starving and I was a grilled burger on their plate. I was too damn young to realize exactly what was going on, but I felt it in my gut.

I knew that if they had half the chance they'd start touching me in all the wrong places. I saw the way some of Dad's friends stared at me, at my face and mouth. I got the idea, all right, even at that age.

There was this one hunter, dude by the name of Randall Ellis. Old friend of Dad's, fellow Devil Dog. Served with Dad in 'Nam, but that didn't stop the bastard from pushing me face first into the wall first chance he got when Dad and Sammy weren't around.

Ellis pushed his hands down inside my jeans, panted into my ear that I was so damn pretty I was practically begging him to fuck me. He dug his fingers into my left hipbone, cupped my right cheek with his other hand.

I used what Dad taught me. I turned around and broke Ellis' nose.

He left me alone after that.

We left his place that evening, and a week later when the news came that Ellis had been killed by a ghoul, Dad took it pretty hard.

I just couldn't bring myself to give a damn.

* * *

When I got old enough to take care of Sammy on my own, Dad started ditching us weeks at a time sometimes. When things came up, like the rent or food for Sam and me, I handled it. You use what you have in this life. I'm not gonna start bawling like some bitch. Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you.

I'm pretty good with my hands. Fast, too. I could have used some of the stuff Dad taught me to rob banks.

What? I thought about it once or twice.

I went for convenience stores instead. Quick in and out. Shoplifting was _always_ an option.

One time, I was sixteen, and Sam was twelve. We were staying in this rented house, a shabby little dump in this no name town right outside Madison, Wisconsin. Dad was up in the woods somewhere, with Bobby and Caleb, in the dead of winter, hunting this demon dog pack. He'd been gone for five weeks.

The landlord sent his son to collect the rent. Short bastard with bad skin and oily hair. Couldn't have been much older than me. When he saw me and Sam living in that rathole his family owned, wearing faded jeans and t-shirts, this sonofabitch's nose curled up like he was smelling a gas leak.

I hated him. God help me, I did, and I didn't even know the bitch's name.

He enjoyed telling us that if we didn't pay we'd be out on our asses the next day, no court date, no nothing. I wanted to pistol whip him right then and there.

I almost did when he licked his lips and said that a "pretty boy" like me could always find a way to get money. I was being invited to the dance, and he figured that poor white trash like me would love to dance with him.

He figured _wrong_.

I let him leave, let him walk out the same way he came in. Made my muscles cramp and my teeth ache _not_ to whip his ass, but I didn't. I might be "pretty", but I'm not _stupid._

I made sure all the doors and windows were locked down and salted. Made sure that Sam had the last food in the house to eat. He was all wide-eyed, worried about our situation. I told him not to worry, sat him down in front of the television, found something he liked to watch and told him I had to go out for a while.

Then I took a ski mask, a couple of ammo clips and one of my pistols and went on a hunt of my own.

Me and Sam still had a roof over our heads and plenty to eat when Dad got back two weeks later.

He never really questioned me, y'know? He should have. I think maybe a part of me wanted him to, wanted him to be my Dad instead of John Winchester the hunter, wanted him to take me by the shoulders, sit me down and ask me just where the hell I got all that money.

Dad came back in the middle of the night all beat all to hell. Pale, bruised and bloody. I patched him up, helped him get to bed. I never mentioned what I did. Figured the dude had enough problems on his plate, you know?

That was the _only_ reason I didn't hunt the landlord's ugly bitch of a son down, and show him what a "pretty boy" could do.

There were other times, in other states. I never got sloppy, or greedy. Wasn't about to let myself get arrested, let Sam end up with Family Services. That would have been stupid.

Yeah, so sometimes we had more month at the end of the money, if you know what I'm saying. So what? It happens to a lot of folks, right?

Let's just say that sometimes the way I looked made life easier for Sammy and me, while Dad was gone, and leave it at that.

Dad asked me a couple of times about the money, and I told him I found work fixing cars.

Sometimes that was true.

* * *

I was about sixteen when I first realized that I'd have to do something to keep the pervs away. Some of the places Dad and I went to, for intel or supplies or guns, were pretty rough. I mean _squeal like a pig_ rough. Some of these folks made the hillbillies in _Deliverance_ look like Peewee Herman.

I got some of the usual hungrey looks when Dad wasn't looking, but nobody touched me while I was with him. I knew that sooner or later I'd have to come into these places by myself, and it wouldn't be good to come in all dewey-eyed and baby-faced.

Pretty, I mean.

I was John Winchester's kid, and by this time Dad had gotten a pretty tight reputation for himself. He wasn't exactly Mr. Congeniality, just one of the baddest of the bad. I knew I'd have to make my own rep, but I needed a visual.

So I imitated Dad.

I watched him enough. Got the swagger down to a science, perfected the walk.

If I gave myself a really close shave I looked almost as young as Sammy did. As soon as that peach fuzz on my face got rougher, I kept the stubble.

I got loud and in charge. Found my own growl, my own command voice.

It worked, all the time.

Except when I didn't _want_ it to. Except for the times when I was feeling scared and lonely, like some emo bitch, and it didn't matter if the only other person there was male or female. I didn't care.

All that mattered was I found a safe place to fall, at least for that night.

* * *

I still dream about Hell. You know that, right?

Sam wants to know about it, what it smelled like, what it felt like. I'm not in a sharing and caring mood with him, okay?

I told Mom I'd always take care of Sam. Told Dad that too. I made the deal for Sam, 'cause I just couldn't take the sight of him lying there grey and lifeless and dead.

Turns out I fucked that up too. Seems to be my speciality, fucking up the lives of everyone I've ever loved.

I see Ruby, and I wonder why the hell I didn't gank her the moment I laid eyes on the bitch when I made it back.

Sam's changed, and I know it's all because of her. I can see it in his eyes. He thinks I'm weak. Told me so himself. Told me that he was the better hunter, never mind that if I hadn't tipped Bobby about the siren, Sam would be dead meat right now.

I know that one of these days I'm gonna find out exactly what Sam and Ruby have been up to.

And I know I'm not gonna like it.

* * *

Guess you wanna know what it was like, huh? Being downstairs, I mean.

I heard that damn word over and over down there.

"So pretty."

I tried not to scream when Alastair gutted me with that long knife of his.

"Come on, pretty, scream for me, will you?"

I still…I still dream about that…

"Just once. Open that pretty mouth and scream for me, Dean."

"Pretty little boy. You're so tight, Dean. After all you did topside, you're still so tight. Took all of that and then some for Sammy, huh? All that, and he's up there, and you're down here, With me."

I still dream about Alastair touching me.

I couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop any of it.

I cussed him out each and every time he made the offer: cut or get cut. I called him everything but a child of God, told him to ram it, go for distance.

He laughed at me every damn time.

"Such pretty eyes. So bright and green. Mind if I take one? You don't mind, do you, Dean?" Alastair dug the tip of his knife into the corner of my right eye, popped it right out of its socket.

"Such smooth golden skin. I've always loved freckles. It's a kink of mine. Bet those men topside loved touching you, Dean. You don't mind, do you?" He worked the tip of his blade underneath my skin and peeled me like a grape.

He asked me, over and over again: "Cut or be cut on. Take the knife, pretty. Take it and I'll let you off the rack."

One day…

One day I said yes.

I spent my days working the rack.

I spent my nights in Alastair's bed.

Hell was filled with the screams of the damned. The loudest sound I ever heard down there was Alastair whispering in my ear.

* * *

I stop sometimes and look at myself in a mirror or a plate glass window. It's different than it was before.

Yeah, before I was cocky. Before I'd look at myself and smirk. I made this look damn good. I was a smartass about it, just a dumb kid who didn't know the half of it.

Some of the souls I tortured tried to bargain with me. Some of them thought it was some kind of test, some kind of mistake, right up to the time I started tearing into them.

"You don't look like the rest of them," this one old woman told me. "You have the face of an angel. There must be some mistake."

I started out slow, but I sliced her tongue out as soon as I heard the word "pretty" come out of her mouth.

Toward the end, Alastair moved me into a bright room with mirrored walls.

I loved the place.

Saw myself at every angle. Enjoyed seeing the way my body moved, how the muscles in my chest, back and shoulders looked. Sometimes I'd strip down and work bare-chested. My eyes shone black in the mirrored glass and I prowled around the rack like a big cat on the hunt.

Blood's got a different texture in the mirror. You know that? It does. It's slick and it's shiny.

I used to smear it on my face, neck and chest.

"So sweet. So pretty."

Alastair would lick the blood off my bare skin as I worked my knives.

* * *

Now I try not to let Sam see me when I glance into a mirror. He probably thinks I'm shallow. I don't give a fuck about that.

I think Bobby knows. One time I was sitting in the Impala, waiting for Bobby, and I started staring into the rear view mirror. I didn't even notice he was standing there until he cleared his throat. Twice.

I didn't like that look of pity on his face. He played it off, but I knew what he was thinking just the same.

So I'm the righteous man, huh? Not only are angels dicks, they're stupid dicks. I'm the one who'll end it, all right, but I don't think anybody's gonna like the end result.

In the meantime, I keep looking for some sign, some mark, of what I am inside. Something, anything, to show that I'm not the fuck up that I've always thought I was. Something that will show me that I can carry this weight.

Something that will wash away all the blood I spilled in hell, something to make up for all the fuck-ups and mistakes I made topside.

I've been called a lot of things. Pretty's for someone _normal_. Somebody _human_.

Somebody worth something.

I'm not pretty. I never was.

-finis-

A/N: Well, that's it. Let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate it.


End file.
